Damaged
by sampire
Summary: He was trying--really, he was. But he wasn't so sure he could save her anymore. Bella Swan was slowly falling apart, and she was taking everyone else down with her. third person, all povs. after Edward leaves in New Moon. Rated M just in case.
1. Chapter 1

**(Disclaimer- I do not own Twilight or any of its characters. All credit for the series belongs to Stephenie Meyer.)**

_hey there. if you're here, you're obviously about to read the first chapter of my new story. thank you for  
giving it a chance, and I truly hope that you enjoy it. And, also, by the way, I know that this first chapter is  
a little bit weird, not to mention short, but the story will get better as it starts developing more.  
(this story will be in third person.)  
read and review, please. I could really use the feedback._

**Chapter One.**

She was standing with her back to him, her eyes grazing delicately over the sphere of grass. There were so many forbidden memories there in the soil, buried deep inside of her chest. They bubbled up to the surface of her mind, watering her eyes and riddling her chest with holes. Her arms grasped at her middle, trying to apply the right amount of pressure to ease the pain. The air around her felt heavier, tangible.

She had made a mistake in coming here. The thoughts in her head were taboo.

"Can we go?" she choked out softly, turning her glazed eyes to her friend.

The protest was hanging on Jacob's lips, but his perceptive mind noticed the downward tilt of her mouth, the arms that clung to her core like broken-down life preservers. Crumpling his brow in sympathy, he threw his arms around hers, holding her more tightly in place. Her eyes closed in reaction, allowing her attempted poker face to slip and disappear. Bella slumped against him.

"It's okay, honey," he assured her, lifting her gently off her feet. "I'll take you home."

She had been able to count on him for as long as she could remember. When _he _had left her busted up and shattered, Jacob had been there to piece her together again. He hadn't left her side once, other than the few days he'd neglected her due to an order from Sam. That hadn't been his fault, though, she knew. He hadn't been able to ignore the order from his Alpha. But every other day, every other moment that she needed him, there he was, brightening the dark stains that invaded her heart.

Jacob carried her to the car, gently sliding her sullen form onto the passenger seat of his Rabbit. His eyes lingered on her face for a long moment, standing there in the light streaking down through the trees. The heat felt strange to his already feverish skin, but pleasant nonetheless. He wondered if Bella could feel the golden rays as they curled in through the windshield, or if she was too numb with pain to notice.

"Is there someplace else you want to go?" he inquired softly when he was inside the car.

Bella shook her head, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. His hair was windblown from rushing her back here, and his full mouth pouted prettily as he dwelled on her pain. She could see the worry lines beginning to etch themselves permanently into his forehead. With a guilty, wobbling finger, she smoothed his russet skin, her eyes regretful and apologetic when they met his.

"I thought I would be able to handle this, but I couldn't," she admitted sadly. "I'm sorry."

"There isn't anything to apologize about, Bells." Jacob wanted to say so much more, to reach deep inside of her heart and pull away all the shadows, to bring some contentment back into her turbulent life. He wanted to harbor all of her pain deep inside of his skin, take it away from her so she could heal. He wanted to kill that leech for breaking her.

"It hurts," Bella whispered, voice breaking on the last word.

Silently, Jacob's arm wound around her waist once more, drawing her to him. She felt better there, closer to being one whole piece. Even with him there, though, she could still feel the new festering sores the meadow had drilled into her chest. It had been two years now, and still _he _had not come back. She hadn't been aware of the hope she'd carried all this time until she'd stepped into that field and found it empty.

_What did you expect? _she chided herself. _He isn't coming back._

* * *

Bella was sitting on the back of the bench awkwardly, her face to the darkening sky. Splattering drops of moisture fell from the thick clouds, touching down on her skin like fairy missiles. She could taste the trees around her, smell the briny scent of the sea. Lowering her head, her tired eyes searched the familiar woods for a splotch of red amongst the green. She had spent so many days waiting here on the edge of the beach, too weak to make it down to the sand where there were memories of _him. _After all, that was where it had all started, where the secret had been revealed.

_"There's always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones," _Jacob had said so long ago. He must have forgotten to mention the biggest risk of all, a broken heart.

Just as she was cringing in response to the dark turn her thoughts had taken, she saw it. Bella wasn't frightened or even surprised by the enormous creature approaching; instead, she felt a weight lift from her chest as the giant wolf pawed its way to her side.

"Hey, Jake," she murmured breathlessly, combing her fingers through his wild red-brown fur. Cocking his large head to the side, he peered at her with black eyes too intelligent to be those of a mere animal. She could easily read the question in his wolfy expression, feel his impatience as he gently bumped her with his nose. A low rumble vibrated up through his throat and Bella dragged her fingers over it, trying to calm his concern.

They had been doing this for so long now that it came as natural to them as breathing, as waking up in the morning. Each morning when Jacob left with his pack to search the area for threats, Bella would wait in the woods on the makeshift bench he'd built. Every ten minutes or so he would trot back to her, soothing her worries and hoping to take away some of the loneliness he knew she felt. There was no time for him to change back into a man when he did this; he needed to stay connected to the pack. Still, it didn't seem to bother her. He thought she even preferred it that way, because he couldn't talk. She tended to avoid all things that required a response lately. It worried him.

She wasn't getting any better.

"My Jacob," she whispered, pulling at the fur behind his ear. His eyes rolled at the pleasure of her touch and he leaned into her palm, humming with satisfaction.

Bella half-smiled at his response to her, letting her body lean into his, soaking in the heat. She knew she didn't deserve a friend like Jacob, but she was glad to have him nonetheless. It hurt to think of what she would be like without him there to hold her together. With a crook between her brows, she considered how long she would have lasted before she ended up in a mental institution.

"Do you have to go back?" she wondered, frightened by the idea of it. Jacob heard the tremor in her tone, and looked at her with worried eyes, wondering, too, how long she would have lasted without him.

"No, we're done now, Bella." Sam came out of nowhere, pants already back on his bottom half, his hand in his pocket. He maybe should have warned them of his presence, he realized as he glanced at Bella's frail expression. He had heard the terror over and over again in Jacob's head, the crazed worry that no longer possessed him alone, but the entire pack. She was getting worse and worse, it seemed, and not one of them could think of anything that would help her forget.

Bella Swan was slowly falling apart, and she was taking everyone else down with her.

Averting his eyes, Sam left the mangled pair to themselves, his thoughts focused on his own mangled partner, his _ex _partner, Leah.

"Will you change back?" Bella asked Jacob hesitantly when Sam was gone. "I could use a set of arms…"

Behind the fur of his animal form, Jacob's heart was imploding. Taking care of her was becoming more than he could handle, but he knew without question that he would continue this way until she no longer wanted him, or until she had killed them both. It wasn't a choice; it was a necessity. He needed to keep her going. He had to.

Very deliberately, he turned his head to face her, and licked her face from jaw to hairline. She flinched away from him, her hand automatically flailing out to slap him, and made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat—just like he had hoped she would.

Jacob forced an imitation chuckle from his throat, though there was nothing funny about it. Even this reaction of Bella's was melted down and lifeless. She was like a zombie playing dress up, trying on a human response to see if it fit, but never getting it right.

Closing his horrified eyes, Jacob turned from her and disappeared into the woods.

When he came back, his strong arms folded tightly around her waist, and he became her duct tape once again, forcing together the shreds that Edward had torn apart.


	2. Chapter 2

(disclaimer- no ownage.)

_this is rather sucky, I'm sure, and pointless. but still, it's here.  
so read it and enjoy, if you'd like. reviews wouldn't hurt, either._

**Chapter two.**

"Where are you now," she whispered softly, addressing the sky. She didn't say it as a question, but merely as a bland thought that had long ago been stripped of its meaning. There was no point in repeating it, she knew. No answer would soon come down from the clouds and relieve her of her agony, no melancholy voice would errupt from the raindrops in a declaration of tender regret.

Turning, her dark eyes swept over the mud and the shoeprints she was retracing, her own. She could calmly admit to herself that she was a fool, that any person who would commit themselves to the act of throwing their sanity into a blender each day and night was a fool. It was plain fact that she should be over it by now. The words he had spoken had held brilliant truth, that humans forget things every day. But a human couldn't forget what they held onto with great terror, with fatal hope, with dumb tenacity. Bella couldn't forget when she pained herself so harshly to remember.

Sure, she could concentrate on other things. She could, if she tried, but trying seemed an impossible feat to her stubborn mind. How could she try not to love someone who had run off with her heart? But the truth was, despite all the excuses she made to hold onto the past, her heart was, alas, not missing from her chest. This she knew, though she tried hard to deny it. She knew because she could feel it shudder and quake in the presence of a friend, her best friend, Jacob.

"Bella?" Mike Newton stood on a driftwood log not too far from her, glaring confusedly in her direction. Her legs itched to turn her around and toss her into the water, the better to leave him quickly. Instead, she forced an odd imitation of a smile at his overtly friendly form and carried her ladened body onward.

"Uh, hey, Mike," she said.

"Didn't expect to see _you _here!" he shouted to her, though she was well within hearing distance. "Me and the gang thought you'd practically dropped from the face of the earth!" He took a moment to chuckle, as though the idea largely amused him. "Where have you _been _since graduation?" Mike dropped from the log, hopping to her side.

Bella forced a calm breath through taut lips, trying not to look annoyed. "Here and there, you know," she replied vaguely.

Michael made a face. "Uh, yeah...Well, we've been all over, too. Port Angeles, Cali., Seattle...Oh! Me and Jess just got back from Mexico! Did you know that?" The smile that invaded his face was broad, as if his words concealed some hidden meaning he prided himself on knowing.

Bella debated briefly whether she should be nice and direct attention to his blatantly suggestive behavior like he wanted her to, or if she should just ignore it completely. The latter would most definitely dig deeper beneath his skin, but she couldn't be sure she was in the mood for his irritation.

"Why were you in Mexico?" she pried dully, failing to achieve the correct amount of curiosity in her voice.

Too caught up in his exaggerated glee, Mike didn't notice her flop. "Well, we've been getting real close since...I guess a long time. And so a couple of weeks ago I dropped these tickets on her desk at work -- she works in this really fancy place in Seattle now. A secretary, that's what she is -- and told her I was kidnapping her and hauling her off to Meh-hee-coe!"

Bella's fingers twitched at the word 'kidnapped', her incessantly nagging memory triggered, but Mike noticed nothing, once again, continuing his story without pause.

"I kind of...well, I kind of asked her to marry me." He noticed Bella's eyebrows uncharacteristically show expression, and he raised his voice in defense. "Before you say _anything_, I _know _that we're young and all. It's just, you know, she's a chill kid."

The snort she loosed at his description of Jessica gained in response a frosty glare.

"I love her." The words were sure, but they were stupid. Bella didn't think that the boy was capable of such profound emotions, but perhaps she was being harsh. After all, she'd suspected herself to be in love, to be some day standing in an altar with her knight in shining armor. Look how well that had turned out.

As an afterthought, Bella made herself swallow down the forced hope that Mike and Jessica's marriage would survive. "I hope it turns out well enough," she told him, and then she turned on her heels without saying goodbye.

Mike watched her slink away with an astonished expression. _What happened to her? _he thought to himself.

* * *

Jacob was standing in the doorway of his makeshift garage, wiping grease from his rench with a dirty rag. His mouth was tilted upward on each side, a brilliant half moon glowing from above his chin, as he watched his friend. Quil was running slowly behind a teetering child, making less of his fierce speed as to empower the young girl. In response, she squealed and giggled, trampling over the sodden grass of the lawn, her eyes wide with false alarm and excitement.

Jacob chuckled, calling out to his friend. "You know, in a couple years, she'll get back at you for chasing her like that."

Quil stopped briefly, putting on pause the strange animal growls he'd been executing from his smiling mouth, and punched Jacob in the arm. "Nah," he breathed. "She'd never be able to catch me." And thus, he took off once more in pursuit of his imprint, screaming her name in a dark, ghoulish way.

Shaking his head with a laugh, Jake turned back into the room, placing the semi-clean rench back in its box. His brown eyes, out of habit, glanced over at the two latest empty soda cans, and he sighed a sullen sigh, thinking of a girl.

He thought about the girl a lot, it seemed, more than was necessarily healthy for him, but it was to be expected. He'd loved her practically the day his eyes had found her little face. And he tended to see her face a lot now-a-days, even when she wasn't around. He was okay with that, he supposed--or at least accepting. But he certainly wasn't happy.

While he was thinking this, his old friend Quil padded his way in behind him and reported something with a careful mouth. Then he said, gingerly as though each word filtered down through a sea of bombs, "You know, Jake, I think I'd better get Claire back."

Jacob tossed the rag angrily onto the stool beside him, his fist clenched. "Now, huh? _Right now. _That wouldn't have anything to do with what you just told me, would it?" His words were harsh and frozen.

Quil tapped his fingers gently on the wall beside him, a nervous habit. "No, just...I think she's tired. You know how kids get."

"I know how Claire gets, and it definitely _isn't _tired. That girl doesn't wear out easily, Quil. You know it." Jacob paused, glaring at his old friend, who was suddenly wearing a hole into the floor with a set of guilty black eyes. Jake tried to calm his tone, speaking more quietly now. "You were supposed to stay until six, Quil. _Six."_

Quil took a moment to carefully arrange his words. His eyes were sad, lips pursed in apology. While he was thinking, he absently lifted his arm and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He didn't notice the grease smear along his cheek when he did it, and Jacob wasn't in the mood to point it out. Small favors be damned, he thought, watching.

"I know I was supposed to stay. I know. I'm sorry, man. I just...I oughta take her back to Emily's. Kay?" Quil was staring noncomittally past Jacob's arm when he spoke, watching a little red ant slide across the floor with a bundle on its back.

Jacob wanted to punch him. He really did. It took a lot of strength to keep his arm at his side, to keep it from swinging up and showing Quil those stars you see a lot of in kiddy cartoons. His arms tensed up and his teeth clenched, eyes turning wild with anger. He wasn't sure he could do it, but after a small, steadying breath, he forced his head to nod in belligerent consent.

Quil left quietly, a profound guilt etched onto his brow.

Jake kicked a crate across the room, scattering tools every which way. Each piece that collided with the floor, he wished wore Quil's face.

* * *

"So, I see Claire's bigger..." Bella said conversationally, standing in the doorway just shorty after. Her brown eyes watched Jacob's frigid face with hidden agony and guilt. She swallowed the lump in her throat as her eyes scanned the room.

Jacob was silent.

"Jake," she said slowly, knowingly, after a moment. "why are there tools everywhere?"

He ignored her, naturally, coming to take her hand in his instead. She looked horrible, he thought. Her eyes were dead and her hands were cold. How long had she been standing outside listening to the fight?

"Yeah, she's gotten bigger. Sorry she couldn't stay," he murmured this to her lightly but quickly, trying to get over his explanation. He didn't want to have to linger on the subject. "Quil...Quil had to get her back to Emily's. They're having a sort of...family dinner tonight."

Bella's face dulled further, if possible, and she sighed without emotion. "They always eat at six, Jake."

He was quiet, picking at a screwdriver he'd picked up from the floor. He didn't like the way that she sounded when she spoke. Her voice was no longer hers, and it made him sad. Thinking this, he glared at the tool in his hand, lobbing it at the wall opposite them.

Bella hardly even flinched, carrying on with her train of thought. "It's four," she whispered.

Jacob looked up at her, earnest to make her happy again. He could hear the guilt lathering up her throat. "They're eating early today, you know. Weird family, weird timing." He shrugged, trying to smile reassuringly.

Sighing, Bella Swan wrapped her slender arms around her old friend, suprising him greatly. He froze in place beneath her hands, watching her apprehensive eyes look up at him. She twisted onto her toes to press cold, pink lips to the collar of his shirt.

"I don't want you being mad at Quil, Jacob," she said. She knew his excuse for Quil's absense was phony. Claire was just afraid of Bella. And Bella couldn't blame her one bit. Most little kids were afraid of zombies, weren't they?

Besides, Jacob's friends were always leaving when she came around. She didn't take it personally, or tried not to, but she knew how Jake felt about it. He was always too damn protective of her, like God forbid one of his stupid friends not be able to stand being anywhere _near _her. God forbid. But it didn't matter to her. It didn't.

She'd survived worse.


End file.
